Leroy’s eyes went wide. “Give me a couple of hours and I’ll try to get more specific.”
Stella gave Leroy her card with her cell number. “Any leads, I’d be grateful.”
Leroy approached the bar to pay his tab.
Stella left, wondering what next. She was so involved in her thoughts as she walked down the street that she didn’t see Johnny Rincon until he stepped in her path, a roadblock to her car. Wearing sunglasses, as usual, his scar fully revealed, his face looked as scary as any Day of the Dead mask.
“You never learn, do you, Stella?”
The familiar sentiment clenched her stomach in a knot. “Learn what?”
“That I’m the go-to man.”
“And what should I go to you for? All right, I’ll give it a shot. How about telling me where I can find Paz Falco.” If Johnny wasn’t the one behind the attack on her and Manny’s murder, he might give her a clue.
Johnny smiled. “I was thinking about something a little more personal.”
Trying to breathe normally, she asked, “Like what?”
“How about…the truth about that ex-priest you’re banging.”
“He didn’t kill anyone.”
Impatiently Stella tried shouldering past him, but Johnny blocked her again.
“I’m not talking about murder.” Johnny paused, then dramatically added, “O’Rourke knew.”
“Knew what?”
“About you. That you needed a lesson in keeping your mouth shut and we were gonna provide it.”
Now her heart was thundering. He was talking about the past. About what happened twelve years ago. About her being raped as a life lesson.
“Dermot couldn’t have had a heads-up.”
“Tony knew.”
“Ahead of time?”
Johnny smirked. “We all knew. We drew straws to see who would get the honor. But Tony was squeamish. Violence made him sick. He was too much of a coward. And a squealer. He needed to get what he knew off his conscience so he could live with himself. What better way than unburdening himself in the confessional?”
They drew straws. Stella was constantly amazed at the cruelty that seemed to be inbred in some people.
“You don’t know that Tony confessed anything,” she said.
“Are you sure?”
“If Dermot had known, he would have—”
“Saved you? I guess he did try in his own pathetic way.”
Stella gasped. Dermot had saved her…if not from the rape. But he’d just happened to be walking down the street, passing the alley when…
Stella’s heart thumped, and she felt as if she’d just swallowed lead. Had Dermot known ahead of time?
“You have a good day.” His grin making him look like pure evil, Johnny Rincon shoved past her.
And Stella felt as if she was going to be sick.
DERMOT CHECKED his voice mail on the way home. Stella had left a message, asking him to meet her at his place as soon as possible, but there was no excitement in her voice, no indication that she’d gotten a lead on Falco. Just the opposite. He heard a slight waver, as if she were upset about something. Dermot only hoped nothing had gone wrong with Pablo. He called to find out, but she didn’t pick up.
By the time he got to his neighborhood, he was as tense as she’d sounded. And by the time he got to his floor, he was prepared for the worst—what if Stella had gotten hurt?
But when he opened the door to the loft, she was sitting at the counter, as calm as you please, having a mug of coffee. She turned to face him, and he anxiously scanned her form. She looked fine physically.
But her face was pale and closed, as if she’d received a shock.
“What’s going on?” he asked, crossing the living area. “Did something happen?”
“You could say that.”
“Did Falco—”
“Not Falco. I didn’t find him.”
“Then what?”
“You,” she said softly.
“Me?”
A shiver of apprehension ran through Dermot. He tried to take Stella in his arms, but she simply twisted out of his grasp and moved away.
“Stella?”
“You knew,” she said, her tone accusing.
Dermot clenched his jaw. “You need to be more specific.”
“You knew that I was going to be raped.” She pronounced each word carefully. “You knew because Tony couldn’t stand having it on his conscience. He confessed to you before it even happened.”
How the hell had she found out? Dermot wondered, then realized chatty Tony had shared with someone who’d shared with Stella.
“Anything Tony told me was under the seal of the confessional.” Even now he couldn’t talk about it.
“You’re not going to defend yourself and tell me Johnny was lying?”
He didn’t respond.
“I don’t understand. You knew a crime was going to be committed. You knew I was going to be raped. You even knew where. That’s how you found me. I was so grateful to you for saving me…when you could have stopped the rape before it happened. You could have called me and warned me.” When he didn’t respond, she asked, “Or did Tony wait until the last minute to make the confession? Why didn’t you call the police? They could have gotten a squad to that alley faster than you could get yourself there.”
His voice tight, Dermot said what he could. “Under the seal of the confessional, a priest can’t repeat any part of what he hears, not for any reason, not even to prevent a crime, not even to save lives. I took a vow. I made a promise to keep what I heard to myself. I may not be perfect, but I keep my promises.”
He would promise her anything now if it would make a difference, but he suspected it wouldn’t. He suspected what he’d known all along—that her finding out would be the end of them. He’d known it from the first, the reason he’d been reluctant to get romantically involved with her. He couldn’t be honest about this one thing, and it was this one thing that was most important to her.
Stella was staring at him as if she’d never seen him before. “I don’t understand. After…knowing…how could you live with yourself?”
“I couldn’t,” he admitted. “I skirted the spirit of the canon when I went looking for you myself, but—”
“It wasn’t enough,” she finished for him.
“And I’ll always regret it.”
“Tony came to you so that you would do something.”
“Tony came to me to be forgiven.”
Tony Vargas had wanted to absolve himself of guilt and let his confessor wear it for him, Dermot thought. Tony hadn’t been any hero. He’d vowed to go straight, but he was weak, always seeking approval from his peers even as he sought forgiveness. Years later, after he’d gotten out of jail, he’d enthusiastically used Dermot’s counseling services at Heartland—another form of seeking forgiveness—but he’d never changed. He was a thief to the end, as the laptop attested.
“You’re not a priest anymore,” Stella said. “You’ve had all the chances in the world to tell me the truth. You’ve had twelve years. You’ve had the past week.”
“I’m still bound by the seal,” Dermot said, knowing she wouldn’t understand. He’d known that all along, of course. “What I can tell you is that what happened to you was the final straw in my so-called vocation. I never heard another confession after that.”
The truth was finally out. It lay between them like an open wound.
Would it ever heal? Dermot wondered. Would this be the last time they would share a private conversation? If so, then she needed to hear the whole truth. She might not accept it, but he needed to tell it.
“So, what now?” she asked.
“That’s up to you, Star. Know that you’re in my heart and always have been. Know that I love you with everything I am.”
She turned even whiter, if that was possible.
“I’m committed to freeing you,” Stella choked out, “but after that? Don’t expect me to excuse you. I’m sorry, t
oo, Dermot, because there are some things that simply can’t be forgiven.”
TRYING TO PRETEND nothing was wrong, Stella primped in the ladies’ lounge at Club Undercover just before opening. But her hands were trembling, and when she tried to put on her lipstick, she smeared the color over the edge of her lip.
Cursing softly, she used a tissue to remove the excess before trying again.
“So, why is this a particularly bad day?”
Stella’s head jerked up and she met Cass’s worried gaze in the mirror. “I just want it to be over.”
“The search for justice…or you and Dermot?”
“That obvious, huh?”
“To me, yes.”
Wondering how much Cass could sense, Stella said, “Nothing new happened today except that I learned what a fool I’ve been.”
Cass sat on the stool next to her. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“What good would talking about something that happened twelve years ago do?”
“I see.”
“I doubt you do.”
Even if Cass could “see” the rape, she wouldn’t have a clue as to Dermot’s betrayal.
“You hold Dermot responsible for something that happened to you.”
“Good guess.”
“Something that wasn’t his fault.”
Stella needed to talk to someone about this. Another woman. She’d never talked to her mother or sister about what happened to her. But Cass was here, and Stella didn’t know a warmer or more caring person.
“Twelve years ago, I was raped.” Stella figured Cass probably guessed that part the other day. “Tony Vargas confessed the crime to Dermot before it happened. Dermot didn’t call the police. He could have stopped it with one phone call, but he didn’t.”
Cass asked, “Are you certain the phone call would have changed the outcome?”
No, she wasn’t certain. Having been on the streets in uniform, she knew how tied up the other officers in the squad might have been. “At least I would have had a chance to get away.”
“Or maybe not. Dermot didn’t abandon you, Stella,” Cass said. “He tried to help you, but he couldn’t. He’s suffered, too. I’ve felt the darkness of his soul. He’s tortured by what happened.”
“Tortured?”
“With guilt.”
“He should be.”
“Don’t be so hard on him. I think you know that Dermot is a man of honor. He was torn between what he wanted to do and the vows he took. There was no right or easy decision for him. So he tried to be true to both the church and you in the only way he knew how.”
She hadn’t said anything about vows getting in the way. “Did he tell you about it?”
“He didn’t have to.” Cass smiled. “Some things I just know about people. Give yourself some time and you’ll see things more clearly.” She patted Stella’s shoulder. “Everyone’s waiting on us. Well, everyone but Logan.”
Stella nodded. “Manny’s murder.” She knew Logan, too, was still trying to track down Falco.
…the only way he knew how…
Cass was probably right about that. Dermot had done his best. He’d put himself on the line. He’d simply been too late. So why didn’t that make a difference to her?
Stella wished she could say Cass’s pep talk had done her some good, but even though she conceded Cass had a few points, Stella really didn’t feel any better. It was too much to take in without stopping to think about it all, and she was determined not to stop until this case was solved.
So she took a deep breath and followed Cass into the employees’ lounge. The first person she spotted, of course, was Dermot.
No matter what he’d done—or hadn’t—she still loved him. Wonder of wonders, he’d said he loved her.
That made the heartbreak all the worse.
DERMOT FELT THE AIR crackle with tension when Stella entered. She paused for a moment, her gaze connecting with his. Then she skirted him to get to the coffee. Her spine was straight and she didn’t look his way again. He, on the other hand, couldn’t get enough of her. Considering her feelings, he might never see her again once they ended this fiasco.
Maybe he should end it, simply release her from her promise to clear his name. She would never do it, though. She had a sense of honor that would keep her working for him until the bitter end.
“Pablo and his cousin are staying safe at my place today,” Gideon began. “But tomorrow, Pablo wants to make a public appearance to eulogize his brother.”
The next day being the final Day of the Dead, Dermot thought.
“He can’t,” Stella said. “It’s too dangerous for him.”
“His mind’s made up.”
That ticking clock just started ticking faster. He could see the worry in Stella’s face replace whatever else was going on in her head. Always she put others before herself. Twelve years ago she hadn’t pressed charges because of the threat to her sister, Anna. And now she was forgetting her own heartache in deference to Pablo.
How could he ever make up his failure to her?
“So, any new developments?” Gideon asked.
“I couldn’t find Falco,” Stella said. “And so far, neither have the men Logan put on it. I’m going out again when we’re done here tonight.”
“Not alone,” Dermot said. Thinking they could use as much street-savvy backup as they could get, he asked, “Blade, any chance you can get out of here?”
“Boss?”
“No objections.”
If Stella wanted to object, she was holding herself back in tight-lipped silence. No doubt she couldn’t stand to be around him anymore. But no matter how she felt about him now, she was doing this for him and he wasn’t about to let her go into danger alone.
“What about your trip to Humboldt Park?” Gideon asked, interrupting his thoughts. “Did it pan out?”
“It did, though I’m not sure it helped us. I talked to one of my colleagues who was a former Latin King. Gus ran with Marta twenty years ago.”
“Was Marta O. as tough as the Chicago Writer article indicated?”
“Tougher. Then her nine-year-old brother Jaime was killed and her world changed.”
“Brother?” Gabe echoed. “Where did he come from? I only got the goods on two sisters.”
Dermot realized Gabe probably hadn’t heard the details of Marta’s eulogy, so he hadn’t known there’d been a brother who’d been killed. “Because Jaime’s last name was Doral, not Ortiz. Different father.”
“How did he die?”
“Drive-by. He and his friends were playing on the sidewalk, and apparently a gang member who didn’t belong in the part of the neighborhood run by Latin Kings and Latina Queens was walking down the street. Marta’s boyfriend was riding shotgun in a car cruising the neighborhood. Only, when he fired, he missed the gang member and shot the kid.”
“How tragic,” Cass murmured.
A fact of life in gang-infested neighborhoods, Dermot knew. “Marta heard the shots and ran out of the building to try to save Jaime. She screamed for help and literally tried to hold back the blood.”
“But the wound was fatal,” Stella said with assurance, as if having heard this story too many times. “There was nothing she could do. The moment the boy was hit it was over. It just took a few minutes for him to let go.”
“The blood,” Cass said. “That was the blood I saw on Marta’s hands.”
Dermot nodded. “According to Gus, Marta was never the same after that. She went wild with grief, all the more so because she couldn’t demand a ven detta—it would have been against one of her own. Actually, her own boyfriend. After Jaime was buried, she fought her way out of the gang and started on a course to end gang violence by becoming part of the political system that could change things.”
“She’s not the one, then,” Stella said.
Gabe countered, “That information doesn’t necessarily clear her.”
“I think it does,” Stella argued. “Her eulogy for Tony was hig
hly political. I don’t think it was lip service. She wants to bring down the gangs, not perpetuate them, so why would she hire a member of a gang to do her dirty work?”
Everyone agreed that made sense.
“So it’s between Johnny Rincon and Louie Z.,” Stella said, and then to Gabe, “I need a look at that file you’ve been compiling on Tony’s murder.”
“Sure thing.”
He immediately went to fetch it for her. She only glanced Dermot’s way once before getting her hands on the folder.
Dermot watched Stella thumb through it. She stopped to read something more carefully. Her forehead pulled into a frown, and Dermot wondered what she’d found.
Then her cell phone rang.
“Jacobek here.”
After listening for a few seconds, Stella stood so quickly that she knocked the folder off the table onto the floor, where it lay open to the article she’d been reading. Dermot bent to pick it up.
“That was Logan,” she said. “They’ve located Falco in an apartment building in west Pilsen. He’s heading there now with some men. I’m going to meet him for the takedown.”
“I’m with you,” Dermot said, glancing down at the item in the folder that had held her so fixated.
Tony Vargas, holding up his prized walleye for the camera, stared back at him.
Chapter Fourteen
Stella flipped on the portable siren and the light she’d just secured with Velcro onto her dash, and headed for the capture scene. As she careened around traffic and took a hard left, a quick glance in her rearview mirror assured her Blade was keeping up.
“Watch out for that van!” Dermot said, his voice tight over the siren’s wail.
“I’m not blind.” Stella smoothly moved out of the van’s way. “I don’t need a second driver.” Her nerves were tight enough as it was. Tighter since he’d opened the passenger door and had hopped in without permission. If she hadn’t had to put on her Kevlar vest, he never would have gotten the chance. “You shouldn’t even be in this car.”
“This is about me—”
“Not anymore…not just you. It’s about a gang member trying to kill a police officer and then succeeding with one of his own.”
Velvet Ropes Page 17
